5th Chamber Concert
Moritz Moszkowski: Suite for Two Violins and Piano in G Minor op. 71 / Bohuslav Martinů: Three Madrigals / Richard Strauss: »Metamorphoses« (Version for String Sextet)
Alter Saal
Among the many European composers who came to the USA as immigrants during the war years was the Czech Bohuslav Martinů. His return to Prague was thwarted by the communist regime, and later an accident affected his health. The Three Madrigals for violin and viola were written in this extreme situation. They are among the masterpieces of this genre.
»Metamorphoses«: Richard Strauss wrote the work under the impressions of shortly before the end of the Second World War and understood it as a farewell to the world and his art. He was in a »desperate mood! (...) All gone!« he writes to the Viennese writer Joseph Gregor. At the end he quotes the funeral march from Beethoven's »Eroica«.
The concert opens with Moritz Moszkowski's Suite for Two Violins and Piano in G Minor from 1903.